How Tom Hadfield Founded Soccernet at Age 13

Tom Hadfield (aged 16 and on the left) with his father Greg. Photograph: Graham Turner Graham Turner/Guardian

Summary

Tom Hadfield was the founder of Soccernet, which is still the premiere soccer (football!) website in the world. But just as the title says, Tom began Soccernet when he was twelve or thirteen. So, certainly, Tom takes the cake, out of anyone we’ve spoken with so far, for having been in the Internet Game his entire life. Tom tells us the unique story of Soccernet’s founding and how it ended up with ESPN. As a bonus, since Tom is the first person we’ve spoken to from outside of North America, he’s also able to give us our first look at how the web took off in other parts of the world.

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About the AuthorBrian McCullough

Brian McCullough has been in the Internet game since 1998. He was the founder or co-founder of the following companies: WhereAreTheJobs.com, WhoToTalkTo.com and ResumeWriters.com. He was named to a 2016 TED Residency.
A book loosely based on these podcasts will be coming out in Spring 2018. It is currently titled HOW THE INTERNET HAPPENED, and will be published by Liveright, a subsidiary of W.W. Norton.
He is an Arsenal fan; Gator fan; England fan. In that order. In 2014 he was the co-founder of a startup human named Penelope, and in 2016 he launched Maxwell into beta.